Old Man
by Team Dragon Star
Summary: When weariness settles into our bones and the years take our memories, all that remains to do is but one thing: Have an iced tea with an old friend.


**Disclaimer: TDS does not, nor never will, own Dragonball Z.**

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><p>The wind blew down from some distant mountain top, carrying with it the smells of the summer prairie, mint, and rain. It rustled the white hair of the old man, the gray in it long faded and the black nothing but a distant memory. He was sitting in the valley, isolated and alone with no company but that of the animals. The man smiled; it reminded him of his youth. Before the peace of his world was shattered.<p>

He brought his hand up and rubbed the back of his neck, a habit inherited from his father. His hands tremble more than they used to. He held up his right hand and inspected the slightly shaking appendage. It slowly formed into a fist and he flexed. While he might yet be considered strong among the people outside of the mountain, he could feel his own weakness, and chuckled wryly. While he had faced enemies capable of decimating worlds, galaxies, even universes, he was still just as powerless as anyone else when it came to the final advancing enemy. The slow march towards the inevitable couldn't be stopped by his hand, or anyone else's. Not that he would have wanted to.

He wasn't a stranger to it. His wife had fallen to it, his mother, and nearly all his friends. His brother had died only 20 years back. Even his own child had succumbed. And then his grandchildren, and then their great grandchildren. He didn't even know what generation roamed the world outside of his mountain. Eventually he had lost contact with them. They had forgotten him, and he felt no need for a reconnection. Just another ancestor lost to time. He simply had the audacity to still be living, unlike the more polite ones, who had bothered to do what ancestors did and died.

Vegeta had had the right idea. He'd left the planet years ago in search of, what he had called 'an honorable death'. Gohan hadn't heard from him since. He hoped, with no malice in his heart, that Vegeta had found what he was looking for.

He leaned back and laid down in the grass, his back groaning in protest at his activities. His eyes closed. He let the warmth of the sun gently caress his eyelids and let the calming smells of summer come over him. Mint and myrtle, dust and fir and pine, sun baked grass and the clean scent of a mountain stream. A smile graced his lips, the lines of worry fading slightly, and his face, for a moment, reflected that of the younger man he once was.

A rustling awoke him and the familiar Ki of his oldest friend greeted him. He sat up and nodded to acknowledge his presence. Piccolo lowered himself down and began meditating next to his former pupil. Gohan looked over and smiled to himself. Despite his own immense age, Piccolo still seemed as young as when they had first met. His thoughts drifted to his long dead wife, Videl. _'Ah, so that's how you must have felt. I wonder if you'll be excited to see me again? It won't be long I think.'_ He assumed his own meditative position.

His old bones wouldn't allow him to sit as he used to, no longer as flexible or spry as they once were, but he tried his best. Together they sat under the summer sun, until it sank and the moon rose to take its dominant place in the sky. The silver of the moon bathed them both, making them look, if an outsider were to see them, like two spectrals guarding a hidden valley. The moon made its march across the sky and was chased off by the Sun's rise, pushing its rival from the skies.

Piccolo straightened, and Gohan opened his eyes and rose. His back cracking and his knees popping. He looked his mentor in the eyes and Piccolo nodded. He turned and flew away, to whatever retreat where he kept himself secluded in the quickly shrinking privacy of the planet.

_'Even after all these decades, you still can't express yourself, can you? I suppose a leopard could change its spots first. Goodbye to you too.'_ Gohan shook his head back and forth slightly, and smiled as he watched his friend retreat in the dawn's rosy glow, its tendrils creeping slowly above the mountain tops, pink and orange. He knew that this was about as emotional as Piccolo was going to get. The stoicism didn't bother him. He basked in the early morning warmth for a while longer, before calling Nimbus to him. His strength was still sufficient. But why put out energy when you didn't need to? His stomach rumbled faintly. His appetite wasn't as powerful as it used to be, but it still put to shame most of the world.

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><p>Waves lapped languidly on the sandy beach. The garish house behind him he paid no attention to. Gohan pressed his bare feet further into the sand as the water brushed up against his legs, nearly reaching mid calf. He relaxed into the chair. The remnants of his meal sat on the table next to him.<p>

The old man who lived in the island came out, carrying a tray with iced tea. He set it down on the table next to Gohan and took the chair opposite of him, on his right side, and stared out into the blue expanse.

"Thank you, Master Roshi." Gohan never forgot his manners. The old man grunted in reply, having never found his to begin with. Together they sat and drank, content with what was happening. The ocean provided a steady beat, a soothing soundtrack. As time continued its assault on all that he knew and loved he had found himself coming here more and more. A tiny remnant of the life he once had, the friends they once shared. Eventually, the old hermit was all that was left of the life his father had lived. The last reminder of a time when things were simpler.

"You know..." Master Roshi began, but seemed at a slight loss for words. He tried again, "You know, you and your family, Vegeta and his, you've changed the world." Gohan nodded, content to listen and wait for the point that the hermit was building to. "And I mean more than just the physical things, the craters left behind. I mean your kind." Another silence stretched on as Gohan sipped his drink.

" I'm not sure when the last time was you left your mountain, not counting what ever trips you've made here." Gohan stopped and thought. He was sure he had made a trip down at some point. He didn't have any television, or any link to the outside for that matter. It had to have been recently, he thought. Not so long. But the more he thought he wasn't even sure it had been in the century, even the last two.

"I...don't know." Gohan stared out over the ocean and thought.

"Sneaks up on you, don't it? Becoming a hermit, that is. It's not normally a plan most young people have." Gohan laughed and nodded. "I only ask because, well." Again Roshi paused. "Why don't you come in? I think I can show you what I mean."

Master Roshi stood, and Gohan stood behind him and followed the old man into the house. The living room looked much like he remembered it, and the turtle hermit turned on the TV. It was simply a weather report. The man looked handsome enough, but nothing in particular stood out to him. Roshi stood waiting for Gohan to see it. He finally did. The weather man turned to point at an incoming front and there, behind him unfurled like a rope in a windstorm waved a tail. Gohan frowned.

"The majority of people have them now. It seems to be dominant. If a tailed human and a non-tailed human have a child it will always have a tail. The scientists aren't sure why. They call it an evolutionary throwback. For what it's worth it doesn't allow any transformations, thankfully. At least that wasn't inherited." Gohan nodded. "They're stronger now too. Humans in general. I'd say they are least ten times stronger than they were when your father was a youth. You all did this." Gohan sat, stunned slightly.

"I guess Frieza didn't really succeed in the end after all." Gohan let out a laugh and Roshi laughed with him. "It's all interesting I suppose. But it doesn't matter in the end does it? It is what it is."

"Nothing ever does Son, nothing ever really does." They went back out to the beach and took their seats once more.

"I think you should have Nimbus back, I won't be needing him soon." It was now Roshi's turn to wait. " I don't know what you are, really, but I have a feeling that you'll be around a lot longer than me, and possibly someone else could have a use for him." Roshi nodded.

The two friends spent the remainder of their time in companionable silence. After a certain age, after a certain time, words lost their potency. They'd said everything they'd wanted to years ago.

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><p>Gohan leaned under the old massive tree. The limbs shaded all those close to him. His mother, his brother. His wife and child. There was a plot for his father, but no body laid in it. He could feel the Spector approaching. His breathing grew shallow. He trusted Piccolo to lay him down with his family. He had never asked, but he knew he didn't need to. His heart, with each beat, pumped weaker. The wind rustled his white hair, and the limbs of the tree left a dappled shadow across his thin, wrinkled, and withered skin. He slowly closed his eyes, knowing they wouldn't open again. At least not on this planet. His lungs inhaled the final smell of the forest. Mint and oak and fir and dirt. And let out a long contented sigh.<p>

His next breath felt amazing, his body taller, thicker, stronger. He opened his eyes to the afterlife. He was never as frequent a visitor as his father or other friends, but it wasn't entirely unfamiliar. He stepped forward, intent on finding all those whom he had not seen in too long a time.

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><p><strong>AN: **So there's a brief one-shot on mortality, and how one hero might deal with it Death doesn't have the fear in that universe. When you know that there is an afterlife it just feels...more harmless.

I've wondered about the Saiyan aging process. They don't seem to, that is. How might they deal with that? I figured Gohan would live an extraordinarily long time. But not forever, being a halfbreed. I actually did some research right before writing this and it turns out that AT said in an interview they live about as long as humans do, maybe a little longer, but stay in their prime for far longer. I decided to continue with my original idea because, hey, it's my story. I've thought that they lived way longer for a long time now, why change it here?

Some of the questions I had for this story were: What might Saiyan genetics do to the human race? It's clearly passed on. How might a longed lived mortal do? What is Master Roshi, really? Is he truly human or something else? What do you think? Thoughts?

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><p><strong>This chapter was brought to you by our new member ICTOAN!<strong>

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